Cultural Competency & Building Equitable Learning Environments

Join Dr.Tami  on another engaging episode of the Equity Hour, where we delve into the critical topic of culturally competent teaching. In this episode, we explore what it truly means to be a culturally competent educator, providing actionable steps and insights for creating inclusive and supportive learning environments.

Looking to get started? Listen to episode 14 and head to Instagram and comment Awareness to download Dr. Tami's FREE resource for Awareness. 

Dr. Tami  provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies for educators committed to creating inclusive and equitable classrooms. Tune in to gain practical tips for fostering cultural competence and empowering learners in your educational setting.

Transcript

Tami: 0:32

Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the equity hour with me, your host, Dr. Tami Dean. I am so excited to be here with you all today. And today we're going to be talking about culturally competent teachers. So building on, the episodes we've had lately, we've been talking about building awareness. Thinking about how and what we've experienced and how that relates to how that impacts others. So we're going to dive a little bit deeper and get into culturally relevant. Teaching and instruction. What is it? What does it look like? What am I doing? And some action steps for, for today. So super excited. If you missed the episode on awareness, go ahead and check that out in episode 14. To give you a little bit more information and head on over to my Instagram and download a free resource around. Getting started with awareness. Let's let's dive right in. When we think about culturally competent teachers and instruction, and what does that really mean? What culturally competent teachers do. They are conscious around their own bias in how their. Lived experience. Influences. Potential expectations they have for students. So they understand the impact. That those ways of knowing and being an understanding in the world could come to fruition in what they do with students. And so. What is really important here. Is that. Intent. Is not enough. And I talked a little bit about that in episode 14. When we think about colorblindness and how that's typically seen, as people say saying. You know, I don't see color. I see the person. Right. But what that does is it invalidates the actual human that's in front of you and their lived experience and all the complexity that makes up that person. So. Intent. Is not enough. Action is necessary in order to be culturally responsive and culturally competent. Okay. The goal is we are building a supportive learning environment, right. In which we establish classrooms. That honor. The different cultures race. Ethnicities. Socioeconomic status, gender, familial structures, all the things. Right. So I want to be very clear. When we're talking about equity, we are not just talking about race and I feel like it always goes there. That that is the one and only thing that we're talking about, and it is not. Not true. Okay. And if you're needing some more. Resources around how do I become or move into this culturally competent space? I highly recommend reading some Gloria Ladson billings, Lisa Delpit. I also think that Zaretta Hammond's book. around culture responsive instruction and the brain is a great resources. So there's a ton of great resources. I will drop these in the show notes. You know, I am a big proponent of read wide read depth, you know, and if you're really wanting to think about what does this mean for you personally? Hey. Let's spend a time with me, like sign up, let's do a discovery call and we could talk about how I can support you. As a part of your work. Okay. So. Culturally competent teaching is gaining fluency. And facility around another culture. Another way of being multiple cultures, ways of being right and becoming aware of your own. Bias. So I'm conscious of it. I know I've built that awareness. And now I'm starting to think about how does that. Impact my expectations for students in my classroom, or how does that impact my expectations for educators in my school? How does that impact my expectations for families that are in community? That is a part of our school structure. We want to build supportive learning environments. And so we need to reflect on where and how we're building space and capacity for these different ways of. Moving and acting in the world to take place. So that's one thing I want you to do. I want you to reflect on how is my. Learning environment supportive too. Diverse people. Diverse students. How was our school? Supportive a supportive learning environment. And how am I building space? Or how are we building space in our school environment? Because I would encourage you again to do this in a community. If you can't. Or don't have that community in your school environment seek out others. That can be your community. To help with this work. But how do I build space for these other narratives that may be different from my own narrative of how I. No, and be in the world. And I think one important thing to keep in mind as I'm building these spaces for narrative is to be open to someone who may have a similar life experience as you. So maybe you grew up. In a poorer socioeconomic class, you are racially identical. Your family structure is identical. We tend to then. Push our own life experience as an expectation of what it's going to look like for this other person. And this could be a student. This could be a colleague. This could be, family that of one of your students, right? So one of the important things is realizing that everyone's lived experience. Isn't like mine period. Okay. Even if they look like me and came from a similar background, So being open. And then really the third part is we're thinking about. That supportive learning environment is. What is the main narrative? Or voice. Or story being heard. And. From my experience. It's going to be easy to tell what is the main story or narrative being heard? And if you need some more information on this, I highly recommend you Google on YouTube. Go watch the danger of the single story. Very powerful. Right. We need to bring in other stories, not just right for our diverse. Learners. Because actually diverse learners are everyone. Right? But people tend to think of their diverse learners as they're racially diverse kids. But for everyone, because we all need to learn how to engage with others who have different life experiences from us. As we're doing this. We are going to do this from an asset based perspective. And this is an essential part of this work. Because then we come to this thinking that someone is less than or will not do or doesn't do or hasn't done or can't or won't we're coming with this deficit perspective of. What the person brings to the table. So. If you think about. Yourself and. And part of this is reflection, right. And becoming conscious of your own bias. If you've ever said to yourself, These kids can't or those kids won't. Or these parents. Don't or can't or won't, or don't want to. Where do you say what they can do? Where is the asset? And reflection around what they are bringing. So. Maybe a parent can't come. Two. Parent-teacher conferences during the day, because that means they lose their pay. What are they doing? Right. So I'm trying to have this empathetic view of what someone else has experienced and perspective may be. And I want to be clear. I'm not saying. Like you. I'm also not trying to add to the burden of teachers, right. I think that's a whole nother conversation. Around boundaries. And work at expectations for teachers, but I want us to think about this from an empathetic asset based perspective. What is it? That this student can do, or how do I tap into what is it they know and have experienced? To scaffold and support. Learning and connection. Into where we would like them to go for this learning. So bringing in those funds of knowledge, right? So this is our assets and social cultural, tool kit. We bring with us around how we connect with the world. And. Our students feel seen. Our teachers feel seen. Heard. And cared for. I'm going to say that again. When we are taking an asset based perspective. We focus on. Making people feel seen. Heard. And cared for. And I want you to think about. Those times when you have felt seen, heard, and cared for. And a difference that made for you. Versus. When you didn't feel seen. And just felt like no one saw who you are or what your experience or could understand what you were going through or heard, not really listening to your perspective. To understand. And I think the really important part of be at being heard. Is moving away from. A listening. To respond. Mindset. And into a listening to understand. Mindset. And when I'm seen and when I'm heard, I feel cared for. And when people feel cared for. They are much more open. To maybe trying or doing something in a different way. So. One question you can ask yourself. As you're building. This culturally responsive classroom and becoming, and are being this culturally competent educator. Is thinking through and reviewing or reflecting on. The curricular materials you have available to you. And. Expanding those relevant connections. So intentionally and purposefully thinking. How does this connect with the learners that are in my space? Does this connect with the learners in my space. And if it does fabulous, if it's not. What are some other options that I can bring in to help bridge? Right that connection. For my learners. I know we can all think back to a time where we were in a classroom and maybe learning something and had no. Buy-in to what was happening. So when you have no buy in, you tend to check out. That's just a human nature. Right? So kids are just small humans, right? I'm going to keep saying this. They're just small humans. That are learning how to be. They're not adult humans and they're still learning and figuring it out, but even adult humans. Right. So when we see seen, heard, and cared for, and we're able to find that bridge and connection between what is being shared with us and what we're trying to learn and how it connects to something else. One, it makes them more relevant and I'm, I'm much, it's much easier to understand. Okay. So by doing all of this, we are empowering learners. Yay. Empowering learners. We want to empower students. We want to set up systems within our schools, within our classrooms that empower students and do all of these things and that focus on being asset based. Okay. So that is the critical consciousness part. Of. Culturally responsive teaching cultural competence. It's the, so what, so we're talking about this, we're doing this, we're learning this, we're making this bridge. So what. The student says, how does this connect to me? And my life, how can I apply this? Where might I see this in the real world? Right? Same thing. Educators. How does this apply to me? Where am I going to see this right. All of those things come together because we're empowering learners. And as we think about asset based approaches, And empowering learners. One of the things that. I think is really important to be cognizant of and to reflect on and be aware of is. When there is a perception that a student is a quote unquote, low level learner. Or has a deficit and you're taking that deficit perspective. Versus an asset base. Now I want to be clear. That doesn't mean that I don't know that there are challenges that some students have, right. And that we're trying to bridge some gaps or bridge, right. Learning for students, there are needs that students have, but I'm not looking at them as deficits. I'm looking at here's where they are, and this is where we want them to go. And I'm going to use those assets and those strengths to build. And grow the student in this learner, in this area. Very important because when we view. Or when an educator or whomever views, some views of student. As a low level learner, they are interrupted. More times. Then a student that we perceive to be quote unquote, high level normal, or quote unquote competent student. I'm gonna let that marinate for a second. Now I'm going to come back to intent, right? When we have. Uh, learner. That we've perceived as a low level learner. We interrupt. They're more often. Then we do a learner. We perceive to be a quote unquote, high level learner. The intent. Is to be supportive and help the student. But what the action is doing is making them a dependent learner who was always looking for the teacher who has not provided the same opportunity to think critically, to engage creatively. And to use the assets that they have. To come to solution. So I'm going to say it again. Intent is not enough. Action is necessary. So I want you to just reflect on that. This is a really big thing to reflect on because it's unintentional oftentimes, right? That we're interrupting. Let me try to help you. Re correcting. Does it need to be corrected in that moment? Where is there opportunity to promote reflection and engagement and conversation with the student? Right. Think about how often am I interrupting a student? That has been labeled I quote unquote, low level learner, or I perceive to be. Versus my high level learner. research shows. That's what we do. And then that's a learned behavior. That continues. And then we can just continue to perpetuate. This notion that this student. Is incapable of this type of learning. This is part of the criticism, of hierarchy of, of, you know, Access. Two. Critical thinking and creative work. And deeper level work. Right. We tend to give students that are in normal or low level and I'm air quoting right here. Cause I don't like these labels. It's tracks. You know, very surface level type work versus really engaging in some critical thinking. And inquiry and. Conversational and all the things. Reflect on that. I brought up a number of things today. So we've talked about what is cultural competent teachers? What is it? What am I doing? So I'm conscious of my own bias and understanding. I'm establishing a supportive learning environment. I'm reflecting on that in a space that whose story is being heard. I'm making adjustments. If I need to. To bring in and expand those relevant connections. To bridge students, I'm taking an asset based approach and I'm empowering learners. Okay. So I'm building that critical consciousness. Action steps for you thinking about today's episode. I'm big building your cultural competence as a teacher. One. Self-reflection and awareness, if you haven't yet started with building that awareness capacity, head on over to my Instagram. Find my post. Comment. Awareness, and you're going to get a, download a free resource tool to get started. Okay. So it's going to start that reflective process for you. Too. No your community. And not the hearsay Parsons of your community. Like the actual community, like the people. That live inside the community and bring their children to the school. Think about how we're involving the hammer, providing opportunity. Are we building a welcoming environment for the community that exists with our families in our school. And we're taking that asset based approach. As we're getting to know and build this community. Three. As you're doing these reflections, how are you identifying opportunities for growth? Okay. Write them down. Where are my opportunities for growth? Find resources find tools. Sign up for some coaching. Take a course. Read some books. Continue to listen to my podcast. Right. So where are those opportunities for growth? And remember we're listening. To learn. And understand we're not listening to respond. Four action steps. For you as you're moving through and thinking through how to apply cultural competence in your culturally responsive learning environments. Remembering diversity. Is race, ethnicity, soca, socioeconomic status, gender. Family structure. Religion. Wide. It is not just race. If you're interested in learning more. About how to engage with, with work. Talk about your classroom specifically. Please head on over to my Instagram or head into my link tree, sign up for a free consultation call. I would love to set up some time to talk with you about what this can and could look like in your classroom. Thank you so much for joining me again for another episode of the equity hour, it is always such a pleasure to talk with you. And remember. Use your voice today. Use your voice and take action. Have a good day.